Jérôme Fortin’s Discarded Beauty at the Pretoria Art Museum

September 2 to October 25, 2009

Discarded Beauty is an exhibition of Canadian artist Jérôme Fortin, who lives and works in Montreal. A native of Joliette in Quebec, he stands out by his works, created with great care and infinite patience. He is represented by the dynamic gallery Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain in Montreal.

His work has been presented in several group exhibitions both in Canada and abroad, including La Biennale de Montréal (CIAC, 1998); Point de Chute (Galerie de l'UQAM, 2001); Officina America (Galleria d'arte moderna Bologna, 2002); Art Forum (Berlin 2003), ARCO (Madrid 2005), L'envers des apparences (Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, 2005), Quebec Gold (Reims, 2008), Metamorphoses (Istanbul, 2008) Maniobra (Toni Tàpies Gallery, 2009).

Among his solo exhibitions, of note are Ici et là (Musée d'art de Joliette, 2001), Solitudes (Pierre-Francois Ouellette art contemporain, 2002), Gallery of the Canadian Embassy in Japan (2006), Seascapes (Gallery of the Embassy of Canada in Washington, 2006), Courts métrages (Pierre-Francois Ouellette art contemporain, 2007), Écrans (Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, 2007) and WAWA (Gallery of the French Institute in Prague, 2008)

For more than a decade now, Jérôme Fortin produces extraordinary compositions from industrial materials that he collects and transforms into as many artworks for our enjoyment. His work draws primarily from the Cabinets de curiosités of the 16th century; collections of rare, strange, exotic and ill-assorted objects. Through various manipulations and transformations performed on everyday objects such as plastic bottles, books, matches and others, he creates sculptures reminiscent of flowers, shells, amulets and jewellery. He looks at everyday objects for their shape, color, texture and knows how to take advantage of each of these features.

After the Marines, Solitudes and Tondos series, his work takes another dimension; he leaves behind the small scale compositions for works of monumental and ephemeral nature. One such example is the Écrans exhibition at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal (www.macm.org). This series of works inspired by the Zen gardens of Japan was composed from endless strip of paper torn from various sources, pasted in zigzag on double-sided adhesive tape. Aligned and superimposed, the results are large diverse and colourful pieces.

The same goes for this new series made especially for the Pretoria Art Museum entitled Série noire (Black series). These works are once again a variation on the theme; a large number of smaller screens and this time in shades of black, gray and white. Visually very powerful, these works are reminiscent of school blackboards (they seem to have chalk marks). The types of paper used this time are sketch paper, photocopies, blank music scores, Japanese cartoons and coloring books.

The assembly technique: folds and folds on adhesive tape, but in a loop! It requires from the artist, once again, a lot of patience and time to shape his works. From the design to the installation in the exhibition space, Jérôme Fortin uses detail and precision to give everything a meaning.

 

www.jeromefortin.com

Pretoria Art Museum
Cnr Schoeman and Wessels St, Arcadia

Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 17:00
Closed: Monday and public holidays

 

 

Discarded Beauty is an exhibition of Canadian artist Jérôme Fortin, who lives and works in Montreal. A native of Joliette in Quebec, he stands out by his works, created with great care and infinite patience. He is represented by the dynamic gallery Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain in Montreal. His work has been presented in several group exhibitions both in Canada and abroad, including (CIAC, 1998); (Galerie de l'UQAM, 2001); (Galleria d'arte moderna Bologna, 2002); (Berlin 2003), (Madrid 2005), (Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, 2005), (Reims, 2008), (Istanbul, 2008) (Toni Tàpies Gallery, 2009).Among his solo exhibitions, of note are (Musée d'art de Joliette, 2001), (Pierre-Francois Ouellette art contemporain, 2002), Gallery of the Canadian Embassy in Japan (2006), (Gallery of the Embassy of Canada in Washington, 2006), (Pierre-Francois Ouellette art contemporain, 2007), (Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, 2007) and WAWA (Gallery of the French Institute in Prague, 2008) For more than a decade now, Jérôme Fortin produces extraordinary compositions from industrial materials that he collects and transforms into as many artworks for our enjoyment. His work draws primarily from the Cabinets de curiosités of the 16th century; collections of rare, strange, exotic and ill-assorted objects. Through various manipulations and transformations performed on everyday objects such as plastic bottles, books, matches and others, he creates sculptures reminiscent of flowers, shells, amulets and jewellery. He looks at everyday objects for their shape, color, texture and knows how to take advantage of each of these features. After the Marines, Solitudes and Tondos series, his work takes another dimension; he leaves behind the small scale compositions for works of monumental and ephemeral nature. One such example is the Écrans exhibition at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal (www.macm.org). This series of works inspired by the Zen gardens of Japan was composed from endless strip of paper torn from various sources, pasted in zigzag on double-sided adhesive tape. Aligned and superimposed, the results are large diverse and colourful pieces.The same goes for this new series made especially for the Pretoria Art Museum entitled Série noire (Black series). These works are once again a variation on the theme; a large number of smaller screens and this time in shades of black, gray and white. Visually very powerful, these works are reminiscent of school blackboards (they seem to have chalk marks). The types of paper used this time are sketch paper, photocopies, blank music scores, Japanese cartoons and coloring books. The assembly technique: folds and folds on adhesive tape, but in a loop! It requires from the artist, once again, a lot of patience and time to shape his works. From the design to the installation in the exhibition space, Jérôme Fortin uses detail and precision to give everything a meaning.